


between two lungs

by dashirun



Category: ASTRO (Band)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Fluffy Ending, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-18
Updated: 2019-01-18
Packaged: 2019-10-12 01:50:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17458322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dashirun/pseuds/dashirun
Summary: Dongmin's life is a series of schedules and sleepless nights... but Bin slows time back down.





	between two lungs

Dongmin lived in planner sheets plastered with meeting times and half scrawled notes, always in the same pristine black ink. The ink glistened in his mind's eye, snuck its way onto his hands only to be hastily washed away, and always made its way back. He smelled of it - he tasted it on his tongue, sharp and metallic, rough like a hundred paper cuts. He dreamt in swirls of shimmering time stamps and location markers, felt the sting of fresh journal paper running against his palms as soon as he woke. 

Dongmin breathed in meeting times, ate in carefully counted minutes, and called his days by their schedules instead of their names.

Monday came in fansigns and drama filmings, in early morning trips in a quiet sedan alone with his manager. Tuesday brought TV schedules, interviews, the distant bickering of Sanha and Bin until Jinwoo asked him to intervene. Wednesday morning was accompanied by comeback discussions and, somewhere beyond the haze in his mind, the softness of rain on upturned palms.

Thursday morning came in fingertips, cool and gentle against warm skin, gently prodding him back into existence. 

"Dongmin."

He turned once, unfamiliar with the feeling of being woken up, of having warm covers to hide his face in, unfamiliar with the idea of himself not as Cha Eunwoo but as Dongmin.

"Dongminnie," the voice whispered again, and he couldn't help but turn towards it, towards the softness of his name in the morning air and the fingers gently kneading into his neck. Dongmin opened his eyes, gazed past the sleep in them into Bin’s waiting face. Bin stared back, brow furrowed as he leaned in closer. Dongmin felt the jolting in his mind then, the sudden twisting of his insides which he attributed to fear.

"Am I late?" he asked, already half out of bed at the sight of Bin sitting next to him, leaning over so he was practically laying down. 

"No," Bin laughed. "You don't have any schedules today."

“Oh,” he said. Oh. Somewhere in the back his head mind, he could feel silence reaching over – the kind of silence that wasn’t quiet at all, the kind filled with TV static and distant breathing. No schedules, no tasks at hand, nothing for his waking brain to cling to. He realized belatedly that Bin was staring at him, concern crossing over his features. “Sorry... did you say something?”

Bin’s fingers were still carded through his hair. He ran one thumb across the ridge of Dongmin’s brow, frowning down at him for a moment. “I just asked if you were okay. You seemed spaced for a second there.”

“Just out of it,” Dongmin answered, leaning his head into Bin’s palm when the boy started to let his hand fall ever so slightly away. Dongmin felt Bin’s laugh before he heard it in the puff of air against his skin, the sudden rise of Bin’s chest. Then he felt Bin’s hands on him again, featherlight across his skin. Warmth bubbled in Dongmin’s chest, like he’d been placed at the hearth of a soft burning fire and the heat of it was building in his lungs. He looked into Bin’s eyes, reached one hand over to smooth out the creases forming between the younger’s brows. “I’m okay,” he said. Then, as Bin continued rubbing circles into his skin, “That feels nice.”

“Good,” Bin whispered back. He laid down for real then, sticking his feet under Dongmin’s blanket. “Did you think you were late?” 

“Mhm,” Dongmin mumbled. He shifted, burrowing his face into the crook of Bin’s neck and bringing his blanket around them both. Bin felt cold against Dongmin’s sleep-warmed skin and he shivered for a moment when they made contact. Then the blanket was enveloping them both and Dongmin was lacing his arms around him. “God, you’re so cold.”

“I was out and about,” Bin laughed. 

“Oh? Where’d you go?”

“Well… just… to the kitchen.”

“As expected,” Dongmin said, words half-lost into the slope of Bin’s shoulder. Bin simply huffed in response.

“Are you excited to have the day off?” he asked. 

Dongmin didn’t answer at first. Truthfully, he didn’t think he knew what to do with time for himself even when he had it. It was as if he’d been rewired this past year, so focused on the length of time between each scheduled task that even his breathing sounded more like the ticking of a clock than the steady pumping of air in his lungs. “I… guess,” he answered slowly.

“You’ve been so busy lately,” Bin said and Dongmin could hear the frown in his voice. “I just…”

“What?” Dongmin asked, pulling his head up slightly to look into Bin’s eyes.

“It worries me a bit” he began quietly. “That you wake up like this… You wake up with your eyes wide thinking you’ve missed something. Or like you’re surprised that you’re in your own bed.”

“It’s,” Dongmin began, but he stopped almost instantly, gaze diverting as he feels a dreaded pain in his throat and heat behind his eyes. He chastised himself silently, hating the sudden wave of anxiety that came over him, the heaviness hiding in his bones. He breathed in once and continued, voice cracking ever so slightly. “It’s been a lot… but it’s who we are, I can’t complain.”

“You can,” Bin mumbled. He let the back of his hand graze against Dongmin’s chin until they were both looking at each other again. “It has been a lot. And hyung, you’ve done so much, maybe more than all of us combined lately. I’m so proud of you, we all are. But you’ve seemed so tense lately, a bit quieter when you come home. I wish you got more time to yourself. And…”

“And?”

“And… time with me, I guess,” Bin finished. Under the covers, their faces fell into shadow, but Dongmin still caught the dusty pink flush coloring Bin’s cheeks. Dongmin smiled back at him, lifting himself up for a moment before coming back down so that he hovered half over Bin with his arms pinned on either side of the boy’s face.

“Binnie,” he whispered and Bin seemed to look away on cue. He had an unexpected shyness about him at times, or a kind of quiet contentedness. “I… look, I have been tired. Well and truly tired, like I could sleep all day and still wake with my limbs feeling like jelly. And sometimes it’s like I could close my eyes and I’d still see planner pages and calendar dates playing on my eyelids like a movie, and I… I…”

“Dongmin,” Bin said, reaching up so that his palms pressed against either side of Dongmin’s face, concern crossing over his expression once again. The air in Dongmin’s lungs seemed to rattle for a moment but then Bin’s eyes caught his. In the early morning light filtering through to them, they were like pools of sun-warmed honey, deep and endless, and Dongmin’s lungs seemed to find some pattern to them again. Dongmin stared back until Bin appeared rosy pink once more. He could look at Bin forever. When he did, it was like his heart was relearning its own rhythm.

“Bin,” he said. “When I look at you, when I hear your voice, when I feel your hands on me… it brings me back, away from that stress. And then I can think about why we started all this in the first place, why we love where we are, where we’re going.”

“Really?” Bin said, almost inaudibly.

“Yes,” Dongmin continued. “Bin… you remind me to breathe. Thank you for that.” 

“I’m glad,” Bin grinned. He lifted his face up slightly and Dongmin leaned down to meet him halfway. Bin’s lips were soft against his own, gentle and languorous with his smile still hidden in their kiss. Dongmin let his body be pulled back down by gravity, kissing back with that same patient softness. They pulled apart then, Dongmin rolling off and back into Bin’s side. He laid his head on the younger boy’s chest and the early morning silence settled back over them. There was a comfort in this, in the stillness of the dorm and of Bin beside him and the day yet to unfold ahead of them. It settled over them like the first snowfall dusts the quiet world on precious mornings, bringing – for the moment – a stop to the pressing on of time.

**Author's Note:**

> fluffy binu drabbles have become my go-to when I'm attempting to combat writer's block.
> 
> I think I wrote the first paragraph to this maybe a year ago? (around that time when Dongmin had 10,000 things going on at once and needed a month long nap) and I needed some fluff today so... it has become this.
> 
> Also, if you're reading this around the time I'm posting it, ASTRO HAD A COMEBACK!!! PLEASE CHECK IT OUT IF YOU HAVEN'T, IT'S A FUN SONG AND AN ~AESTHETIC~ MV: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEE1UC90I0o
> 
> p.s. I still don't proofread like the heathen I am


End file.
